


Court of Owls, Colony of Bats

by dorkgrayson



Category: Batman (Comics), DC Elseworlds, DCU (Comics), New 52 - Fandom
Genre: New 52, Pre-New 52
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4422137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorkgrayson/pseuds/dorkgrayson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of avenging his parents' death by becoming the fearsome Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne joins the Court of Owls to become their perfect weapon and take down the city that murdered the Waynes. </p><p>A New 52 and Pre-Flashpoint AU/Elseworld's story.</p><p>Rated M for future chapters (violence, death, sex).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Court of Owls, Colony of Bats

_It happened in this universe as it happened in many others; the darkest prophecy. This singular incident had spurred one of the greatest evolutions of mankind - a hybrid of man and monster - a vigilant guardian whose sole purpose in life to balance justice and vengeance. A son borne from light, reborn into darkness._

_But on this world, this story’s path is altered; a demented, distorted version of what it has and could have been. An intervening force disrupts the balance, changes the catalyst of the grand scheme._

* * *

 

_**Elsewhere…** _

It always begins the same: a rare evening out, a shortcut, a thief, and a shot heard around the world.

Bang!

The fall of a great man nothing more than a dim thud in a dark alleyway. A scream ripped from the throat silenced by two more shots.

Bang, bang!

A staccato of sound as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. She drops faster; the small pricks of pearls upon the uneven tar like thunder in the silent smoking aftermath.

The boy falls to his knees, pressed slacks stained with blood still warm; realization dawns slower than the sun. The heir, the scion - the orphan - sits stunned, unable to process what has happened when his world has just flipped and he hangs from it by the skin of his teeth. Blood rushes to and from his head in nauseating waves, and he wishes it would leave his body entirely to mingle with his parents’ and feel safe between them one last time. It would be like falling asleep in their bed; warm, together - forever.

The blood soaks through his pants and stains his skin, as gentle and warm as his mother’s kiss and the comforting pat of his father’s hand; a last caress between living and dead, blood red trails like fatal fingers reaching out to him. Each footstep taken resounds and bounces inside the boy’s skull, each step closer like a slap to his soul. The barrel of the gun presses against the child’s forehead, searing and igniting a spark within him. There is a tension in the trigger finger, a hesitation, standing before the broken remnant of the Wayne child. The man thinks it’s redeeming to let the child live as he turns his back to walk away.

Bruce Wayne thinks he is the ultimate sadist for not killing him along with his parents.

He jumps up as fast as his shaken legs will allow him, shouting into the night, words like daggers aimed at the assailant’s back, “Do it, then! Shoot me, kill me, finish the job, you - you fucking coward!”

“Kid,” that awful voice idly comments. “Back down. I’m a shitty person, but even my moral code won’t stand for killin’ kids.”

“You coward, you animal - I’ll kill you!” he shrieks.

Bruce charges and Joe Chill, petty thief turned murderer, raises the gun. The sight is aimed at the orphan child bearing down on him whose eyes are empty and devoid of life. All that is left: animal focus.

Suddenly, that ugly face goes limp. Bruce stops, watching as the color drains from his ashen mug and spreads in the center of his chest. It blossoms like a rose; just as red, just as vibrant, just as beautiful.

Joe falls to his knees ungracefully. In his place stands a dark, looming figure as tall and thick as an oak. It seems to stretch on for forever, taller than the flickering street lamps casting it in horrible angles. Its hand glistens wetly in the dim alley light, slick and soaked with blood and bits of ligament and sinew. Time seems to have frozen, liquefied like the bones in the boy’s body. Nothing feels real anymore. For a moment, there is silence in the restless city and the weight of that deafening noiselessness bears down on him.

“Thief,” Bruce says quietly, staring up into the face of the boogeyman himself. He breaks that thick silence and reality snaps back to attention in a dizzying blur.

The beast nods. “I stole your kill. You were not yet ready for it. But you can be. Then you can earn your kills.”

Sirens begin to wail in the background growing closer, like a petulant child’s scream, tearing through the night and waking the city. Bruce glances at the bodies of his parents, prone and alone, their hands outstretched to where he had fallen behind them. The police were too late, they couldn’t help. Their bodies beckoned him, their fingers pointing accusingly towards him - or towards his destiny. He surveys them in shadow as they lay broken beneath a halo of light. Tears and rage blur his vision, clouding his judgement.

To avenge these angels, he knew he would have to make a deal with the devil.

“What do I have to do?” he replies thickly.

“Come with us.”

“Who?” Bruce asks.

A flurry of wings tear through the night sky above, a raspy and disquieting noise that feels as old as time. Many voices call back to him:

“Who? Who? Who?”

The monster stretches his hand toward the boy invitingly, all sharp and unfeeling claws of the devil. No, not claws: talons.

“Will you join us? The night is perilous, this city treacherous, but we can teach you all the secrets Gotham has to offer so that you may become just like it. Deep, discrete, and dangerous. But we must go now.”

Tires screech at the end of the alleyway, doors slamming and feet stampeding out of patrol cars as the boy joins the shadows with the monster of old nursery rhymes.

Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them, or they’ll send the Talon for your head.

He could still hear his father’s deep vibrato lull him to bed with the tale, warm milk settling sleepily in his stomach as he drifted off to the protective rumble and timbre of his father’s voice. Distantly, he hears the commotion of cops and a crescendo of voices like frantic wings.

“Oh my god, it’s, it’s - it’s the Waynes!”

“Mother of God, that’s Martha and Thomas Wayne.”

“Martha and Thomas, but no Bruce?”

“Bruce?”

“Bruce Wayne?”

“Oh my god, their son - where is Bruce Wayne? Bruce! Bruce! Where is Bruce Wayne?!”

The voices continued to shout in vain. But there was no Bruce Wayne any longer. There was no light, there was no dark, there was no life, there was no death. All there was, all there is, all there will be: only owls.


End file.
